Alshiba caught her breath. She drew back from him. “…What?” Utterly embarrassing how faint her voice had become.
Amusement glinted in his gaze, but desire fairly burned in it. “Do you really think I would let you be alone anywhere with Mir Arkadhi?” He brushed his hand over her hair, his eyes held hers.
“If you cared for me at all you wouldn’t be her—”
Björn captured her mouth in a kiss. Light flooded her mind as elae flooded her life pattern. She felt suddenly plunged into a sea of elae’s warmth. Her body became weightless, her mind whirling in a heady rush.
He eventually released her that she might reclaim her breath. “If I thought you believed that,” he murmured, running his nose along hers, “I would honor your request.”
“Björn…” his gasped name was very nearly a plea—for mercy, for explanation, for release from the wretched agony of loving him. “Please, just—”
He kissed her again, more gently that time, and in the same moment lifted her into his arms. This was actually provident, because his second kiss completely stole the strength from her legs. Her world spun.
Alshiba must’ve blacked out, for when she came aware again, he was carrying her towards her bed in the mansion. Disorientation swirled, a confusion of lamplights and shifting shadows. She dizzily cast her mind for the last thought she recalled…
“How did you know I was with Mir Arkadhi?” her voice sounded so faint to her ears. Was she speaking aloud at all?
Björn threw back the duvet and laid her gently down on the bed. “I’ve been watching you all day, love.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and brought up the covers over her.
“The artist…” she realized suddenly what he meant, “on the terrace…an illusion…”
Björn sat down on the bed at her side. He brushed a strand of hair from her face and then leaned and pressed a kiss to each of her eyelids. “Sleep, Alshiba…” Then he kissed her mouth. “Sleep, and be well.”
So Alshiba did.
Thirty-seven
“Risk is like the lifeforce; it pervades all matter.”
–The Adept wielder Arion Tavestra
Tanis decided he was either utterly brilliant or insanely stupid…or he supposed, utterly insane. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he pushed a hand through his hair. The third option suddenly seemed the most likely.
Yet his choice felt correct.
Of course, he was basing everything on one very big assumption.
No…not assumption this time—inductive reasoning.
Had his father been there, he would’ve congratulated him…or crucified him. The zanthyr would still likely proceed with the latter.
Mérethe came over holding his boots. “Tanis, are you certain about this?”
He’d told her of his plan the moment he awoke. At the time, he thought he’d seen the barest spark of life surface in her gaze, but now she’d sunken back into her melancholy sea.
“Certain?” Tanis took his boots out of her hands and set them on the floor at his feet. “Not at all.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
He shoved a foot into one boot. “Because I think I’m right.”
She settled meekly onto a chair across from him and captured her hands between her knees. “It seems a terrible risk.”
“What’s the alternative, Mérethe? Arguing with him until he binds me against my will out of sheer frustration?”
Mérethe gazed worriedly at him. “You don’t really know what you’re getting into.”
Tanis gave a humorless laugh. “That’s a certain truth.”
“I know you don’t see Sinárr’s illusions as dangerous, Tanis.”
He glanced up under his brows. “I see the danger, Mérethe.”
She pressed her lips together and watched him with her large blue eyes, her hands still captured between her knees like a child’s. Then her gaze wandered the room. “That these things around us appear real…” she spoke softly, as if to avoid waking Sinárr’s attention to their conversation, “that the people Sinárr creates act real, that there’s solidity and sensation in his universe…Tanis, these things make Sinárr seem benign, because all of this is so familiar.”
Tanis shoved his other foot into its boot and straightened to look at her. “But?”
She let out a tremulous breath. “But he’s one of the most powerful Warlocks in Shadow.” She searched his eyes with her own. “Don’t you see? That Sinárr can make these things solid to our perception, that he can fashion beings out of nothing and make them act human…it should frighten us, but instead it makes us complacent. The depth of his understanding of us just adds to his power over us.”
Tanis slowly straightened and considered Mérethe’s words. While he didn’t doubt her veracity, he no longer trusted her conclusions. “One of the most powerful Warlocks,” he repeated, tasting of the idea, wondering at it.
“He and Baelfeir are arguably equals.” She said this as if it should be meaningful to him. “The Warlocks don’t spend much time in society with one another, and I can’t imagine what would ever bring them into conflict, but were Sinárr and Baelfeir ever given a reason to battle each other…” She let out a slow breath and shook her head. “It would be difficult to say which of the two would prevail.”
Tanis heard all of this, but all his ear really stuck on was the unusual name. “Who’s Baelfeir?”
Mérethe shoved her hands deeper between her knees and lifted a disconcerted gaze to meet his. “In Alorin, he’s more commonly known as Belloth.”
“Belloth.” Tanis barked an incredulous laugh. “The Demon Lord?” You could’ve hung a coat on his dubiety.
But Mérethe’s eyes remained large and very worried.
Tanis couldn’t stop the disbelieving smile that claimed his face. It was just so, well…ridiculous admittedly wasn’t the right word. Implausible was better suited.
He pushed off his bed and wandered around the room, feeling Mérethe’s eyes following him. “So…what?” He flung a look at her. “The Demon Lord Belloth really exists? That’s what you’re saying?”
Tanis was having a hard time reconciling this information against all of the curses he’d heard crossing Fynn’s lips and the resulting images he’d formed in his own head. Come to think of it, most of those curses had centered around the Demon Lord’s loins. Tanis had envisioned a black-skinned, rotund, bald man with a scrotum like two fat hairy bulls, and nearly as big as his own immense belly.
“You would not be smiling if you’d ever met Baelfeir. He’s as different from Sinárr as the night from the day.”
Tanis frowned at her analogy. It left too much room for interpretation while telling him nothing truly useful.
A child couldn’t live in the Middle Kingdoms and not know the Demon Lord Belloth. Parents invoked the Demon Lord’s name to threaten their children into good behavior, while the more frightening tales of him were favorites on All Hallows’ Eve. The stories spanned the gamut from stealing babies in the night to twisting mortals to his will and driving them to do terrible, treacherous acts. Tanis had never imagined Belloth truly existed.
Now he wondered how many of the stories held some truth. As dark and malicious as those tales were, even a grain of it would be too much.
But true or not, it didn’t change his plans.
Tanis squatted down before Mérethe and put his hands on her knees. That time, when he felt the soft wool of her dress, he understood better the skill and power Sinárr wielded to provide him with the sensation.
Tanis met Mérethe’s gaze. “If I’m right, if I can make this work…do you want to go home?”
For a moment she merely stared at him. Then her eyes filled with tears, she pressed her lips together tightly and nodded.
Watching the tears brim and fall from Mérethe’s blue eyes, Tanis recalled the moment when he’d first met her and the promise he’d made to himself to set her free.
He exhaled a measured breath. Well…if nothing else comes of
this, at least I’ll have accomplished that much.
When he was fully dressed and could find no other reason to delay, Tanis headed out of his rooms onto the marble bridge in search of Sinárr.
If the Warlock was really giving him the freedom to create within his universe, as he’d claimed, Tanis might’ve simply ‘thought’ himself to Sinárr’s location. But the lad wasn’t comfortable jumping around at will—at least not on his own cognizance—and in any event, he wanted to use his last moments before confronting the Warlock to organize his thoughts.
He’d told Sinárr very little the day before, only promising that he saw another path and that he would share it once he’d had time to actually formulate a plan. He’d finalized that plan as he was describing it to Mérethe that morning.
She was right, though. It was a terrible risk. So much depended on the conclusions he’d reached about his and Mérethe’s commonality and his strange resonance with Sinárr.
He was also placing enormous faith in an immortal who held an undeniably alien view of existence. Yet he’d come to trust Sinárr, even if he wasn’t entirely comfortable around him.
He assigned the latter feeling to the disparity in their viewpoints. He still wasn’t sure that he could accurately predict Sinárr or know how he would think or feel in certain situations, and that unpredictability kept Tanis off balance in their interchanges. But instinct had been his guide since the very beginning of his path, when it had led him to follow a Malorin’athgul from a café in Rethynnea without cause or caution.
In retrospect, Tanis was grateful to have lived many years with only a bare understanding of his talent, for during those years, he’d been forced to formulate conclusions through thoughtful evaluation—and perhaps a little instinct—rather than on the surety offered by his truthreader’s gifts.
Nadia had shared with him how lost her mother currently felt without her Sight to guide her, and how her father the High Lord was hamstrung against the Danes without the currents to tell him what he saw. This frustrated her, because her parents were strong, intelligent people who had seemingly forgotten that they had other abilities besides the ones that involved elae.
If Tanis had only had his truthreader’s talent to guide him with Sinárr, he would’ve been totally lost there in Shadow. But the lad wasn’t merely a truthreader; he was a wielder personally trained by the High Mage of the Citadel and studied of the writings of one of the most talented Adepts ever to work the lifeforce—his father, Arion Tavestra. Though still young in his practice, Tanis knew well both the Laws of Patterning and the Esoterics, and he had his parents’ wisdom to guide him in applying these vital truths.
He was having to use everything he knew now to guide him across the dark expanse of Sinárr’s will.
As the V-shaped end of the ravine came into view, Tanis started formulating what he meant to say to Sinárr. But the moment he emerged from the ravine, the entirety of his carefully planned speech vanished.
He could barely comprehend what he saw.
Planets seemed to float in the sky—entire worlds encapsulated within the scope of his view. Hulking, ethereal forms, drifting and sometimes even overlapping each other, seeming to occupy the same space while existing instead on a different plane or in a different dimension of agreement.
The white bridge extended a hundred paces beyond the ravine mouth and then simply stopped. Tanis felt like he might step from the marble onto the roseate clouds and climb them to reach the closest hovering planet.
Sinárr came up behind him and placed his hands possessively on the lad’s shoulders. Tanis supposed he was going to have to get used to the immortal always wanting to be in physical contact with him. Once, he’d considered it an uncomfortable sexual advance, but now that he understood better of their opposing natures, he saw that the connection Sinárr desired to have with him was simply tactile, not unlike a cat who insisted on sitting on your lap.
In fact, once Tanis thought of it, he realized that his relationship with Sinárr was quite like having a cat: they were of incompatible races, each party thought it was in charge, both approached the relationship from entirely different perspectives, yet each received some benefit in the exchange.
Tanis had only the barest glimpse of what he stood to gain as yet. But he’d seen what his parents were willing to sacrifice for his uncle’s game. He gauged the path he’d chosen to be equally worth the risk.
Sinárr murmured close in his ear, “I got the impression you were ready for more…elaborate creation.” He nodded towards the worlds hovering impossibly near, defying description, defying explanation by any natural laws. “These are other worlds I’ve made. I thought you might like to see them.”
Tanis moved out of the Warlock’s hold and turned to face him. “They’re different from this one?”
He smiled. “Very.”
“Why is this world so different from the others?”
Sinárr cast a thoughtful gaze into the sky. “This is Mérethe’s world.” A shadow of sorrow flickered across the Warlock’s brow. “I’d hoped it would help her feel more at home.”
Tanis thought it more likely it had made her miss Alorin more. Frowning slightly, the lad set off down the bridge at a meditative pace. Sinárr fell in beside him with his hands clasped behind his blood-red cloak.
Tanis glanced to the Warlock. “Mérethe said you sometimes keep her in the void.”
Sinárr ached brows resignedly. “I cannot force her to see the illusions I make for her benefit.”
“But actually you could, couldn’t you?” When Sinárr made no reply to this, Tanis pressed, “You could force her to see anything you desired, since she’s bound to you?”
Sinárr cast him a wry smile. “Very well, I choose not to.”
“You choose…” Tanis shook his head, threw up his hands in a gesture of hopelessness and then looked exasperatedly at him. “Will I ever understand you?”
Sinárr appeared humorously baffled. “I confess my confusion at your confusion.”
Tanis stopped and turned to face him. “Here’s what I know: when I asked you not to dress me, I was applying the First Law of Patterning, KNOW the effect you intend to create. The First Law teaches that the moment you abdicate from a position of cause you open yourself to be made the effect of someone else’s cause.”
“A fascinating truth,” Sinárr remarked with an appreciative smile.
“When you refused my request to make worlds the other day, when you said you had never allowed another to guide your intent, you were simply applying the First Law.”
Sinárr eyed him amusedly. “I’m following your logic.”
Tanis narrowed his eyes at him. “Here’s my point, Sinárr: I know you didn’t choose to let Mérethe see your world, or not, because of any respect for her own determinism.”
Sinárr seemed injured by this assessment. “Tanis, I—”
“No, I understand this much about you.” Tanis held up a hand to pause the Warlock’s protest. “It’s actually no criticism. I even compliment you, because I understand better now how you must surely view life. When you’ve lived an immortal existence, controlling every aspect of your universe—from the composition of the world to the color of the smallest plant upon it, and which in itself is correct application of the First Law—when this is all you’ve ever known, it would never even occur to you that another being should be allowed to decide things for themselves, and especially not one from a ‘lesser race.’”
Sinárr arched a brow at him. “I perceive a sardonic hue in the color of your compliment.”
Tanis gave him a smile and started walking the bridge again. “So why did you allow Mérethe that freedom?”
Sinárr eyed him uncertainly. Then he lifted his gaze towards the planets looming in front of them. “There is only so much pleasure to be gained in creation for oneself alone, Tanis.” He angled the lad a sidelong glance. “Personal creation holds a supreme joy, yet there is reward too in sharing one’s creation with another, in g
aining their admiration or viewpoint, or as I hope to do with you, in forging a mutual creation.”
Tanis stopped just shy of the end of the bridge. Leaning slightly out over the edge, he could see more clouds, more worlds, stacked up beneath him. The effect was dizzying.
Sinárr laid a hand on the wide marble railing and then trailed a finger along one grey-streaked vein. “I suppose even in my universe, there are some things I don’t want to control.” He gave Tanis a resigned smile. “Mérethe’s appreciation of my creation, or lack thereof, is one of them.”
Tanis knew of at least one other who fell into the same category of beings Sinárr didn’t want to compel—himself. He was counting on it to make his plan work.
He inched closer to the edge of the bridge and stared past the tip of his boots into the endless vista of floating worlds, feeling metaphorically poised on the edge of several eternities. His mouth felt a bit dry, but he managed to say, “So…I have an idea of a way to do this.”
Sinárr’s arm brushed his own as the Warlock joined his side at the lip of the bridge. “I am yours for the asking, as they say.”
Tanis turned to face him. “A mutual binding.”
Sinárr shook his head. “Impossible. It requires both parties to be of the same fabric.”
“Pelas and I are bound.”
“So I suspected when you so easily contacted him in your dreams, but the Malorin’athgul are native to both fabrics: elae and deyjiin.”
Sinárr seemed so certain of what he knew, yet Tanis felt equally sure, because the solution he’d landed on was the only answer that both resolved confusions and predicted phenomena. Sinárr’s certainty, rather than disheartening Tanis, somehow strengthened his surety.
He flashed a smile. “Bear with me.” Then he tried something he’d never attempted—at least not consciously.
He remembered being in the void and how he’d expanded his awareness outwards in a search for something solid. He’d eventually perceived what his disoriented mind had interpreted as the edges of space—some kind of framework of dimension. Now he knew that what he’d actually been perceiving were the starpoints—not of a single world, but of Sinárr’s entire universe.
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